Not enough buzz for a buzzword

We're getting down to the wire on the top ten philanthropic buzzwords of 2007. Here's one that won't make the list - charitable gift cards. You can read about them here.

Why don't they qualify? Partly because there is no buzz to the buzz - gift cards are old news, gift cards for charity are just a riff on an old idea. But more important, they are not a buzzword because they were SO predictable. If you didn't see these coming down the proverbial pike, well, I guess you just weren't looking.

They may work fine, some of the key questions behind them (what happens if the gift recipient doesn't redeem them? Who gets the tax benefit, the buyer or the receiver?) may have been answered by now, and they may even raise some money for charity, but they just strike me as much ado about nothing.

Let me ask you this, if you don't care enough to pick out an actual gift for someone and you don't care enough about them them to find out what causes they care about and make a gift in their name and you don't care enough to make a gift to something you care about in their name, why are you giving them a gift in the first place?